Piracy, warez and You.

[CozBoogie]

If you get into the software development industry it's a calculated and accepted risk that your profits may be impacted due to piracy.

Just like it's an understood risk that if you drive an Indy car at the Indy 500, that you may crash and get killed.

late,
Coz

[[sammich]]

Originally Posted by cozboogie

If you get into the software development industry it's a calculatee and accepted risk that your profits maybe impacted due to piracy.

Just like it's an understood risk that if you drive an Indy car at the Indy 500, that you may crash and get killed.

late,
Coz

Could not agree more, coz

[iceblue]

Originally Posted by DavidinCT

For all the people who are trying to justify piracy, think about it this way.

You work a job, 40+ hours a week, you get your check at the end of the week and it's about 25-40% short, you ask why. Your HR department says "some pirate on the internet took your money, nothing we can do it about it and it will continue to happen."

Think about it this way, then sit back and ask youself why you do it. People need to feed their families too.

Would you create a business just to not make any money ?

I'm not a developer, and not perfect on this subject but, this is the way you should look at it...

Think about it this way. I was a software developer in the early 200's mostly on the day trader commodity side. So why was I the first person to actually release a crack for my own software?

Because I'm not ignorant and I understand what it took growing up to be where many of us are and the true side of what the underground is who crackers are and people who use your software. It is that simple either you understand it from being apart of it you acknowledge the free knowledge movement and you embrace being a part of that. Or you walk around being a fascist for the government of which you do not understand.

[savior02]

please support developers w/o them we would be screwed!

[DavidinCT]

Originally Posted by iceblue

Think about it this way. I was a software developer in the early 200's mostly on the day trader commodity side. So why was I the first person to actually release a crack for my own software?

Because I'm not ignorant and I understand what it took growing up to be where many of us are and the true side of what the underground is who crackers are and people who use your software. It is that simple either you understand it from being apart of it you acknowledge the free knowledge movement and you embrace being a part of that. Or you walk around being a fascist for the government of which you do not understand.

You might fall into a different case. Some develop software to help people and don't care about only making money. Others do it for a living and enjoy what they do but, have to live off it or support a company.

I can see how a company would release a "crack" for their software, in some cases, it helps buisness (ex: crack an old version 6 months before a new release comes out, more people will try it, a good chance more people will buy the new version) but, it's not the norm.

To comanies who have to support their employees or keep the lights on, this is what I wrote that for. When it all comes down to it all, it hurts the bottom line, and that is what they are in business for. After all, why would you start a software buisness just to give it away for free ? How do you pay employees ? Or pay the rent ?

I'm ok with downloading something and trying it out for a few weeks with out the limits or nag screens of trials but, if you like it and use it, you should buy it...

I guess people should see my angle as just a different view....

[rainfreak]

<jumps eagerly onto soapbox>

I was also in development of software, both desktop/server based and web based, and can tell you that I would never want someone cracking my software. Why? Simple economics. Let's look at this realistically, shall we?

Software package development time: 100 hours
Software package sale price: $495.00
My family: wife, four kids, one dog, one ferret
My total income: Whatever I can sell of what I developed

So if you crack my software and I cannot sell as many copies of it, because someone has been kind enough to make it free, then my family suffers. And if you crack my competitor's software, I also see a loss, as some will choose a "free" version of someone else's cracked software rather than my paid version.

This growing problem in the software industry is one of the main reasons that I decided last year to sell my portion of the company (that I helped to build from ground up) to my partner and moved on to a full-time IT job. True, there were plenty of honest, moral people out there who still bought software from me and still do from my former partner and others today. But there were enough people who weren't honest and it started affecting my family's lifestyle.

I think that the real reason that people are willing to purchase software and not use cracked versions is because they see a value in what is being offered. Quality software and support. And they can know that they purchased something that helped them and helped the company/person selling it. I will admit that I do sometimes get cracked versions of software that are not available in a fully functional trial, but that is only to test it and see if it works for what I want. Once I decide that I want it, I buy it. Always.

And for me, it is because I have been on the losing side before, and would never want to make someone else suffer the way I did.

<hops off soapbox smiling>

[Palladium]

Yea I'm new here, but I've got to pull my soapbox out of the closet...


So many points... So little time...

As several others here I've been in software development for a while (since the early 80's). Maybe my take is a little different but here we go...

Piracy is the theft of software etc for resale or monetary gain, so lets use the proper terminology, use of unlicensed software...

First software is Intellectual Property, although the product is intangible it is still the product of someones thought and ingenuity, using it without a license is still theft. Just because IP laws have not kept up with technology is no reason to discount it as not being theft. (a spade is a spade....)

I have developed apps with limited markets (1-10 customers) as well as general purpose tools for data acquisition with very broad markets. Long story short software IS expensive to develop. For most of my limited market apps ran a minimum of $20-$30K, my smaller tool apps incurred 5-10K in expenses (my time, uncle sams cut...). Granted PPC apps are much smaller and simpler, BUT if you suspect that 10% of your potential market may simply copy your work from someone else and not pay you would be a fool not to include that potential loss in the price (even if you don't mind it happening). I agree that software is WAY overpriced, especially with the expanded size of the market (as compared to 20 years ago) but the only thing that the unlicensed use of software accoplishes is to force that price upward so that everyone else pays for those who used unlicensed software.

Unfortunatly, the Micro$ofts of the world do allow greed to drive their pricing, (but again it is economics, price the product at what the market will bear), but to extend that to the small developers (read innovative) who rarely do that kind of market research and tend to reasonalby price their products, does a great disservice to them, and cripples their development efforts. (Please indluge me for one small example) Excel vs Spread 32 (by Bye Design), Both are Spreadsheets, Spread 32 supports 99% of what Excel does (minus VBA and some other advanced features), one costs $200, the other $20...

I've rambled long enough, time to put the soapbox away....

[princelton]

I choose not to pirate (often) :P but lets look at this from a math / realism POV....
ill set the stage.....
" a small software company"
owner or ceo 150k a year
2 medium end developers, 100k a year ea, 200k
3 1st-5th year programers 55k a year each, 165k
1 network security / IT / hardware guy 60k a year
1 office receptionect / secretary 30k a year
six hundred thousand five thousand dollars a year in salary+
employee taxes 70k a year
employee bennifets (medical, dental, average plans 65k a year
business taxes 150k a year
loan repayment (start up loans hundreds of thousands in hardware and software) 36K yr
building rent 48k a year
power 10k a year
phone network 15k a year
T1 line 12k a year
microsoft licencing 15k a year
cell phone expences 7k a year
bonuses, xmas party, etc 10k yr
misc. office cleaning, maintenance etc 10k yr
= one million fifty three thousand dollars a year, that's two thousand nine hundred thirty nine dollars a day just to keep the doors open.....
@ ten dollars our little company has to sell 294 downloads a day every day from here till something bad happens with the economy or someone wants a raise.... then what? at best our small company could pull off 4-5 fresh new programs a year to bring that many downlloads, oh but we have no money in our advertising budget..... so we have to charge more so everyone can get their paycheck.....
honestly folks
WE ARE THE WHOLE PROBLEM!!! Not to worry tho the fix is really easy..... every one, get everyone you know, and everyone they know and tomorrow go right in to work and go right up to your boss and demand that he immediately cut your pay in half!! and then call all of your banks, mortgage company and power and phone company and tell them you demand they cut your bill in half and the gas station.... well cut your driving and car value in half and eat and drink only half as much......
if we all do this the prices WILL all come down! but.... since 7/8 of the modern worlds population is not willing to....... expensive software and the people who steal it are going to happen...period.
but, hey, I was wiling to.....

[netdata]

If you can afford a smartphone, you can afford to buy the software for it.

Everybody tries to live "beyond their means", but reality is, perhaps they should be running a standard regular phone with java midlets.

And I have a right to say this because I am a programmer.

Part of the business is expecting losses from piracy, that is why we try and contact people and hope they will be nice enough to remove our links.

Now, there are circumstances where piracy is almost impossible to avoid,
I will tell you my personal story. I found an awesome program, only to find
the company had GONE OUT OF BUSINESS, so I had no choice in this
situation but to get the program another way, as I had no way to purchase it in my situation.

This is why I started downloading MP3s in the beginning, I wanted bootlegs and imports that were simply not legal or available to purchase AT ALL, leaving no choice but to opt for torrents or whatever means.

I have always thought it was stupid they don't go ahead and license the bootleg material and make it available, after all they don't need permission they already own the intellectual property!!!

Also the music manufacturers LIED to us. Am I the only one that remembers how after tapes came out, they justified the extra cost of buying a CD player by saying they will be able to produce the Compact Disc for cheaper and therefore sell it cheaper - then LIED to us and sold them for HIGHER price????

Anyways I digress.

Support your small programmers, we live off scraps, we do this because we love to do it. Keep us going!

Thanks.

[section9]

I started off using PPCs with abit of naivety. I purchased software like pocketalarm and SPB products.

All these continued till I was aware that the 'free' versions of these software are available. I was feeling abit of a loser, who paid SGD $19 and above for each software.

From then on, I would either wait for XDA guys to provide free similar softwares, or simply use the trial version till I am certain of my purchase.

Afterall, my average lunch per day doesn't cost more than SGD $10 a day.